The Brexit Thread

[ad hoc]

When Brexit has finally been repealed or softened down to what will effectively be EU membership minus several benefits (the only two possible outcomes since June 2016), I will always be grateful that it brought into existence this headline, which has had me cackling like a stoned parakeet all morning.

Sadly I didn't quote it exactly correctly. Hope it still makes you laugh imp

https://twitter.com/Otto_English/status/1169513108370591745

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Pence to give news conference shortly, standing alongside Trump's "winner" Boris. Should be fun.

when Mike Pence went to visit Aras an Uachtarain, Michael D bought up every pink flower in the country and all the lavender he could lay his hands on. You can see some of it in this photo.

[img]https://img.rasset.ie/0012a01c-614.jpg[/img]

[ursus arctos]

Pink dress for Sabina, as well.

You lot are good at this kind of thing.

[ad hoc]

https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1169326382893162497

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

un journalists individually can be quite scathing of the Tories and sticking the knife into Johnson is consistent with their play-the-man-not-the-ball approach. Their editorial approach (in England at least) is of course more loyal to the party (and to Brexit as a concept) and it makes far more of an impact with the public. Today they've turned up at Jeremy Corbyn's house with a pink floral blouse, so you can see where tomorrow's front page is heading.

I think it's important that we don't confuse the Sun swiitching sides in a Tory civil war, with the Sun turning on the tories.

[ad hoc]

In Iceland today (?) apparently they have put rainbow flags on every flagpole in Reykjavik for his visit

[ad hoc]

Oh just looked it up and sadly it wasn't quite as overt as that, it was just the building opposite where he was meeting https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-...b01108045a1cc7

[ursus arctos]

Yeah, just one IT company

Still a nice touch, though.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Pink dress for Sabina, as well.

You lot are good at this kind of thing.

I think that if Mike Pence had a marriage that was as......understanding of the artistic temperament, as our first couple, He would be a very different, and likely much happier man. He also wouldn't have been banging on about the gays over the years.

This must have been quite the weird trip for him. He had to hang out with Leo and his partner. Now leo is a weirdo, but his partner is quite the catch. What Irish mother doesn't want their offspring to find themselves a handsome, pleasant, charming Consultant. and if it isn't going to be your daughter, well, as someone once said at the end of a film, "nobody's perfect." and while having one of you children marrying a consultant can be a dual edged sword, he does seem to avoid most of the pitfalls that you can often find with senior medical figures. it is apparently quite hard to find anyone who has a bad word to say about him in the Medical profession, and in the wider Gay community, and it is hard to express how difficult that is Ireland.

I'm sure that Mike will have a lot to think about after his trip to the old sod. (I see there is bit of a fuss over him staying at Trump's hotel in Doonbeg. The thing is that he would likely have stayed there anyway even if Trump didn't own it, as that's where his grandmother is from. There is no real equivalent in Tobercurry though ashford castle is only 40 miles away.)

[ursus arctos]

Pence would never have gotten into politics if he had been raised in a more accepting environment.

I do sometimes wonder how Leo's partner's parents feel about his choice.

On Doonberg, there was some suggestion here that either the grandmother was a relative of convenience and/or her origin story was faked, though that seems to have been harsh.

[Diable Rouge]

A seven-point deficit seems most bridgeable:

https://twitter.com/flaviblePolitic/status/1169589557748228096

[Nocturnal Submission]

A seven-point deficit seems most bridgeable:

https://twitter.com/flaviblePolitic/status/1169589557748228096

If anything is predictable about UK politics at the moment, which it isn't, you'd expect a hefty chunk of the Brexit Party vote to shear off and go to the Conservatives.

(The BP's one seat is predicted to be Thurrock, BTW.)

[Satchmo Distel]

I'd hope there would be some Lab/LibDem tactical voting to counteract that, tacitly encouraged by both parties (by failing to campaign effectively in constituencies where the other is the stronger)..

[ursus arctos]

This is good on Gove

[URL="https://twitter.com/lrb/status/1169232403581296641?s=21"]https://twitter.com/lrb/status/1169232403581296641[/URL]

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'd hope there would be some Lab/LibDem tactical voting to counteract that, tacitly encouraged by both parties (by failing to campaign effectively in constituencies where the other is the stronger)..

Possibly, but the problem is always that political parties, if not always putting their own interests ahead of the national one, certainly have a keen sense of strategy and positioning. They might have a number of common positions but there are also a lot of differences, and giving another party a boost in a constituency or region may run counter to their long-term designs.

[ursus arctos]

I would posit that polling, which has recently been less reliably predictive in the UK than elsewhere, is particularly apt to err in a situation as volatile and contingent as the one you currently face.

[ursus arctos]

This is an interesting debate within Labour

[URL="https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1169606599826116608?s=21"]https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1169606599826116608[/URL]

[Etienne]

I don't think there is any chance of Labour agreeing to an election before the 19th October.

[ad hoc]

https://twitter.com/unionlib/status/1169557957341777920

[ursus arctos]

Etienne I would agree, though there seems to be a genuine debate as to whether it is still better to wait until after 31 October.

[Flynnie]

Pence would never have gotten into politics if he had been raised in a more accepting environment.

I do sometimes wonder how Leo's partner's parents feel about his choice.

On Doonberg, there was some suggestion here that either the grandmother was a relative of convenience and/or her origin story was faked, though that seems to have been harsh.

Weren't Pence's parents Irish Catholic Democrats?

I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean they were tolerant and accepting of the gays, not at all, but I thought the death cult of evangelical Christianity is what makes Pence such an odious fucker.

Having a google, "Pence's grandmother is from Doonbeg" appears to have been a thing in July 2016, so it may well be true.

[E10 Rifle]

It's a tricky strategic call, because calling for a general election has been a key Labour demand for a long time, so to be seen to be dragging feet on it now comes with risks. And there's a certain lack of confidence in this insistence that it be put back to November (or beyond), almost predicting that Johnson would win an outright majority on a 15 October. But if Johnson's defeated, then any kind of Brexit could be off.

(Incidentally, asking as a gentile, doesn't 15 October fall on the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which would preclude observant Jewish people from voting - remind me again who has the institutional antisemitism problem?)

[David Agnew]

I think it's important that we don't confuse the Sun swiitching sides in a Tory civil war, with the Sun turning on the tories.

I think it's important that we don't confuse the Sun being anti-Labour in a part of the UK where the Tories are tanking in the polls, with the Sun switching sides in a Tory civil war.

[ursus arctos]

It's a tricky strategic call, because calling for a general election has been a key Labour demand for a long time, so to be seen to be dragging feet on it now comes with risks. And there's a certain lack of confidence in this insistence that it be put back to November (or beyond), almost predicting that Johnson would win an outright majority on a 15 October. But if Johnson's defeated, then any kind of Brexit could be off.

(Incidentally, asking as a gentile, doesn't 15 October fall on the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which would preclude observant Jewish people from voting - remind me again who has the institutional antisemitism problem?)

Yes, it is far from an easy call, though there is presumably some benefit in being able to throw Johnson's "do or die" back in his face.

The restrictive aspect of Sukkot ends at sundown on the 15th, so there is theoretically time for Observant Jews to vote in the evening (that clash was why the original date of the 14th was scrapped).

[Flynnie]

It's a tricky strategic call, because calling for a general election has been a key Labour demand for a long time, so to be seen to be dragging feet on it now comes with risks. And there's a certain lack of confidence in this insistence that it be put back to November (or beyond), almost predicting that Johnson would win an outright majority on a 15 October. But if Johnson's defeated, then any kind of Brexit could be off.

(Incidentally, asking as a gentile, doesn't 15 October fall on the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which would preclude observant Jewish people from voting - remind me again who has the institutional antisemitism problem?)

In my mind, the balance is between not losing the initiative and letting him continue to make a complete fucking tit of himself to show he's unfit to run the country.

Maybe an extra week? No more, really.